Unemployed persons are defined as all persons 15 years of age and over who were not employed during the reference week, and:

had actively looked for full-time or part-time work at any time in the four weeks up to the end of the reference week and:

were available for work in the reference week; or

were waiting to start a new job within four weeks from the end of the reference week, and could have started in the reference week if the job had been available then.

Two important measures of unemployment are the number of persons unemployed and the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate is defined as the number of unemployed persons expressed as a percentage of those in the labour force (total employed and unemployed).